


Dependence

by babywarg (morphaileffect)



Series: DrPepperony Prompts and Fics [5]
Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Drama, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt Stephen Strange, Insecure Stephen Strange, Light Angst, M/M, Other, References to Addiction, Romance, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2019-10-13
Packaged: 2020-12-14 02:24:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21008165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morphaileffect/pseuds/babywarg
Summary: Stephen knows he has an addictive personality. He worries that he's becoming dependent on two people in particular, and takes the necessary steps to prevent further damage.





	Dependence

**Author's Note:**

> From an anon ask on Tumblr: "Drpepperony with Stephen thinking Tony and Pepper are just using him to spice up their sex life, but they're actually in love with him. The dumbass just keeps leaving before they can tell him and barely stays around unless it's for sex "
> 
> I believe the excellent fic by White_Sparrow titled ["Stay over if you can"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19863304) suits this lovely prompt better. In the meantime, I shamelessly go off-tangent and hope anon likes it anyway, angst and sap and all ♥
> 
> Idea for the ficlet came to me while listening to an old fave: [“Addictive” by Faithless](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRrjefFRFAg).

Pepper didn’t need to say she was worried about him.

Tony was, too.

So when she proposed that they talk to him, Tony offered no resistance.

“The trouble is getting him to stick around,” Tony pointed out. “Remember that time we tried to trick him into staying for breakfast?”

“I think he stopped taking our calls for days after that, too,” Pepper thoughtfully replied.

Tony made a small sound of assent. “Of course, Wong just said he was busy, so we can’t be sure…”

“He’s avoiding us for a reason, Tony.” Pepper sounded absolutely sure about this. “I just want to find out what. And if it’s a good reason…we can let him go, right?”

The words “let him go” got to him in a bad way. Like a punch to the gut. A wrenching. It hadn’t even happened yet, but it already brought on pain.

Maybe Pepper could let him go easily. As for himself…he wasn’t too sure.

He laid a hand on Pepper’s shoulder. As if sensing the turmoil in his touch, Pepper leaned into it.

“I know,” she murmured, in reply to the unsaid. “I’ll miss him a lot, too. But if it’s what he needs, we have no choice.”

***

“There’s nothing going on with me.”

Stephen sounded genuinely puzzled. Not to mention a bit irritated. He seemed to be determined to make himself unlikeable, so Tony and Pepper would let him go right away.

…but it was really hard for them to find reason to hate on someone they’d already seen stark naked and begging, skin slick with sweat, mouth hanging open as he skirted the edge of climax.

Tony had to mentally clamp down on his arousal. Was it going to happen every time? The sorcerer would say something deliberately inflammatory, and he would flash back to so many vulnerable moments?

Well, Tony said to himself, maybe that wasn’t so bad.

“If that’s it, I can go, right?”

“No,” Pepper said sternly. Stephen frowned at her. “Stephen…we just want to know why you’re avoiding us.”

“I’m not avoiding you,” Stephen argued.

“Yeah? My five unanswered calls since Monday say otherwise,” Tony argued back. “Look - we’re adults. We should just be able to talk about stuff.”

For a moment it looked like Stephen was going to get angry. But he shut his eyes instead, let out a long, slow breath.

“I agree. Let’s be adults about this.” He straightened up in his chair, far from relaxed. “I’ll just lay it out: I have an addictive personality. I’m sensing the warning signs of addiction in myself. So I’m staying away from triggers.”

Tony and Pepper looked at each other, alarmed.

“Triggers?” Tony echoed. “From us?”

“Stephen,” Pepper began in a somber, almost pleading tone, “if there’s anything we’re doing that triggers you in any way, you can let us know. We’ll do our best to avoid it.”

“Damn right we will,” Tony supplied. “So what is it? Sex? Drink? Food? Casual conversation? I gotta say, if you ask me, we haven’t been having nearly enough of _any_ of that - ”

“Please don’t make light of this,” Stephen said, almost too softly to hear. He ran a hand over the lower half of his face in frustration.

“I’m not making light of it,” Tony answered. To emphasize, he leaned forward and laid a reassuring hand on Stephen’s shoulder. “You’re talking to a man who knows all about addictions. And the fallout from them. I’m sorry I’m…not as refined as Pep. But I hope you know we both mean it when we say we want to help.”

Stephen took his time answering. It seemed to Tony all the while that Stephen was shrinking from his touch - was all but shrugging his hand off his shoulder.

In the end, however, Stephen took his hand, and pressed it to his lips.

“How can you possibly help,” he asked, without looking either Tony or Pepper in the eye, “when it’s the two of you I’m addicted to?”

On the other side of Stephen, Pepper reached out and quickly took his hand and Tony’s in both of her own. She knew it was not a good time to talk, and Tony trusted her instinct, shut up duly.

“You remember,” Stephen continued, encouraged by the silence. “That first time, in the penthouse of Stark Tower…I said yes only after you said it was one less regret.”

One less what-if. Yes. Tony remembered. He still occasionally gloated to Pepper about managing that one.

“Even now I’m wondering if I regret saying yes.” He finally looked up, met Tony’s eyes. He squeezed Pepper’s hand tightly. “I can’t sleep. I can barely eat. I can’t get either of you out of my head. When I succeed in not thinking of one of you, I get to thinking of the other. And when fate is feeling especially vengeful, I’m bombarded with thoughts of you both.”

Pepper laid her other hand on Stephen’s arm, and Stephen seemed to tense up from that, too.

_Touch-starved _was the word that came to Tony’s mind. He noticed it that first time in the penthouse. He would notice it again now, even as Stephen seemed to want to avoid being touched.

Triggers, he’d said.

“And you think this is addiction?” Pepper gently asked.

“It can’t be anything else.” The reply sounded absolute. “I recognized the signs some weeks back. When I woke up in the middle of the night embraced by you both. And my only thought was, I could do with a lifetime of this.”

Tony knew the feeling well. He had it several times a day. Whenever both Pepper and Stephen were around.

The thought of it as an addiction…amused him.

And made him realize that Stephen’s lack of experience with the feeling made him prone to misunderstanding it.

He glanced over at Pepper, and knew she was thinking the same thing. They’d discussed how Stephen seemed to be out of touch with his own emotions, a couple of times before.

“If we keep it to sex, and make it occasional, I can manage it,” Stephen said, sounding almost desperate. “If it doesn’t go further…”

“But let’s say, hypothetically,” Tony interrupted, “let’s say it’s not an addiction. Why shouldn’t it go further?”

Stephen shot a questioning look at him. He reached out and touched Stephen’s cheek.

“My point is, you may be confusing addiction with something else.” He gave that cheek the lightest of slaps, before withdrawing his hand. “Which you are highly likely to do, because you are an idiot.”

“Still a doctor,” Stephen protested, his offense genuine. “I _did_ take up the workings of the human body and brain in school.”

“I’m no doctor, but I can come up with a couple of other diagnoses,” Pepper offered. “Fear of rejection. Fear of intimacy. Fear of loss. In a word: _fear_. Something that has less to do with the human body, and more to do with human emotion. You know…” She ran a hand through his hair. “…that part of you that you seem to like ignoring.”

At that instant, Stephen seemed to have forgotten that being touched made him nervous. He relaxed under Pepper’s fingertips.

“Don’t worry,” she whispered to him. “We’ll take care of that, if you’ll let us.”

He looked at her - confused, but calmer. “What are you…proposing, exactly?”

“Just that we want to get to know you better,” she answered, smiling. “We want to know more than what you like in bed.”

“And we want you to get to know us better, too.” Tony hooked his arm around Stephen’s, grasped his hand tightly. “You’re already a part of our lives, Stephen. We want to be a part of your life, too. And if in the long run, it doesn’t work out -” He winked at Stephen. “- it’s at least one less regret, right?”

Stephen gripped Tony’s hand, and his shaking was undeniable. For only a second.

Then his grip relaxed, and he breathed a sigh of relief, for what felt like the first time in a long time.


End file.
